


If People Were Rain

by louiscontroll



Category: Fifth Harmony (Band), Looking for Alaska - John Green
Genre: Angst, Asthma, Basically a whole lot of feelings, Boarding School, Death, F/F, Fire, Gen, Smoking, looking for alaska!au, mental breakdowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1584131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louiscontroll/pseuds/louiscontroll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alison Hernandez would like to say that her size never bothered her, but that's far from the truth. She's tired of always being the short one who always ends up with the short straw. She wants to - needs to - take control of her life. That's why she heads off to the Grand Canyon Boarding School for Girls (a place a lot bigger than she is), rooms with the emotionally numb Dinah Jane (a person a lot bigger than she is), and is instantly drawn to Normani Kordei (a heart a lot bigger than she is). Still, though, Ally feels small; though one large event just might change that. Normally. Looking For Alaska AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Drizzle Begins

**"I went to bed thinking that if people were rain, I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane."**

**-Looking For Alaska, by John Green**

 

It was August 27th, 2014 that day. Ally remembered it very well, actually. That was when she was still Alison Hernandez, a long name for a small person.  That was also her last day of summer school, the day before she'd get five days of summer vacation and then school would start again.

To say she was excited would be an overstatement; she was as far from excited as one could be. None of her summer school classmates were very excited, either - after everyone had finished their tests, which they knew they were passing anyway, nobody even seemed happy to get out of the building. 

"Hey, Morgan," Ally said, catching up to one of her only friends. 

"Alison. Oh, hey," Morgan replied. Morgan wasn't one for words. None of her friends were. Actually, none of them were when Ally was around. 

"So, maybe I'll see you around next year?"

"Yeah, maybe." Morgan hadn't even looked Ally's way before she ran off to go talk to someone else that Ally didn't know. Ally wasn't surprised, though; this was how it always was where she was concerned. Her "friends" were more like smoke screens - if she hung around them, then nobody would bully her for being a loner, even though she really was lonely. 

She was a small person with a large empty space inside of her, and even a large name couldn't fill that gap. 

**********

"Are you sure you want to do this, Alison?" her mother asked. Ally's suitcase had been entirely packed, but her mother still felt the need to ask. 

"I just want to do something bigger," Ally said. "And this is it. My life here - I love you, mom..." Did she, though? "...but my life here just isn't enough anymore. I want to find something I care about." As long as Ally had been alive, she'd been searching for the Unknown. Here in Texas, she knew everything. So, yeah, maybe flying over to Arizona wasn't really what she had planned, but it was Unknown, that's for sure. 

"I want you to promise to write every week," her mother continued, but Ally was already turning away, not even giving her a goodbye hug. "Okay?"

"Yeah, I will," Ally said. "I promise. Love you, mom." Both of them knew she wasn't. 

She walked out the door without another word, getting in the taxi car silently. She didn't like to talk when she didn't need to - what if those words were her last, and they meant nothing? English philosopher Thomas Hobbes' last words were "I am about to take my last voyage, a leap into the dark." They seemed to apply well to this situation (hopefully she'd need nothing else after this) so she let Mr. Hobbes do the talking. 

**********

The first thing Ally noticed about Grand Canyon Boarding School For Girls was the size. The whole building was like a circle, with wings of concrete enveloping a large garden in the middle. Students were already milling about in that garden, but Ally didn't join them. Too many of them for her. She'd get stepped on. So instead, she tried to navigate her way through the campus and found herself in her dorm room. 

The smell of smoke blinded her and the indie music blew out her eardrums as soon as she walked in the door. A girl was doing push-ups in the middle of the floor, a couple suitcases around her with stuff lying all over the place. A still smoking cigarette lay beside her. "Hey!" Ally said, trying to get her attention, but she was forced to shut off the music before she got any reaction. 

"Oh, hey," the girl said, standing up. "Want one?" 

It takes Ally a minute to realize that she was being offered a cigarette, straight from the girl's pocket. "Um," was all she could say. In her defense, she was too busy staring at the sheer size of the girl. She looked to be double Ally's height, at least. This was the largest building she had ever seen, and they stuck the shortest person with (one of) the tallest people. How ironic. 

"Oh, I get it," the girl said, turning away and kicking one of her suitcases in the corner, so she had room to throw down Ally's. Ally hadn't even realized the girl had taken it from her hand. "You've never had one. That's okay. I'll change that. I'm Dinah Jane Hansen, at your service."

"Hi," Ally replied quietly. Dinah moved over to the bunkbeds in the corner, and flopped down on the bottom one. Ally figured that the top one was hers, so she went searching for a ladder, but there wasn't one to be found. 

"You're not going to find it," Dinah said after a solid five minutes. 

"Then how do I get up?" Ally asked, sighing a little. Was she really going to be stuck with a tall know-it-all? It wasn't the kind of Unkown she'd been searching for. 

"Hey, you speak!" Dinah laughed, bringing another cigarette - she just seemed to have those hanging around in her pocket - to her mouth. The smell of smoke hit Ally's lungs instantly, but she tried not to cough. "I was beginning to think that you couldn't."

"'The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do,'" Ally quoted, though she couldn't meet Dinah's eyes after she realized how dorky she sounded. Quotes were just kinda her thing - she memorized them, and she liked them, because other people could phrase things far better than she could. Why try when they already had?

"Who said that?" Dinah asked. 

"Uh, Walter Bagehot, I think," Ally replied, shrugging a little. "I'm pretty sure." 

"Huh," Dinah mumbled. "At least you've got a thing. Stats are my thing. Did you know summer on Uranus lasts 21 years? We wouldn't be in school if we were on Uranus."

Ally wasn't sure what to say, so she just laughed a little. Dinah seemed to think it was enough. "Now, then," Dinah continued, bringing the cigarette to her lips again, "About the ladder. I burned it in a bonfire last year. I didn't have a roommate, and I was drunk, and slightly high, and - oh well. Whatever. Point is, there's no ladder."

"Can't you just ask for another one?" It seemed obvious to Ally, at least. 

"I could," Dinah said, laughing twice through her nose, "but then I would have to rat out Lauren for starting the bonfire, because they're still looking for the suspect, and I can't say I did it all by myself. That's too obvious." That also made sense to Ally; she just wasn't quite sure which one made more sense. 

"Well, how am I supposed to get up?" With her size, the top bunk was way too high, and Dinah seemed comfortable enough on the bottom one (nobody wants to be that person who kicks someone out). 

"I'll toss you," Dinah said, shrugging, and standing up. 

"Uh, I don't-"

"Oh, relax...wait, what's your name? You never did the complimentary name-switch thing when we met. You just shut off my music, which I'm still mad about."

"I'm-" Ally was about to say 'Alison Hernandez,' like she always did, but this place was her Unknown. This was the place where she had to reinvent herself, right? Something shorter. Something easier to say, something that summarized her useless existence, an existence that would be short, like she was. It all made sense. "I'm Ally. Ally Brooke." 

"Okay, Ally," Dinah laughed, putting her hands on Ally's waist, "think of this as our trust exercise. Besides, if I drop you, it's not that far of a fall." Actually, getting dropped would hurt, because the room was tall - sadly - and the top bunk was really tall. 

"Okay," Ally said, laughing inwardly at her new name. It felt odd to hear other people call her "Ally," but she liked it. "I'm ready."

"Good," Dinah said. "1...2!" Without waiting for 3, Dinah pushed Ally upwards, letting the smaller girl go. Somehow, Ally's hands found sheets, and her tiny knees hooked over the edge of the bed. 

"Thanks," Ally said. "But...how am I going to get down?"

**********

It was about half an hour later - Dinah offered Ally at least ten cigarettes and told her about thirty stats in return for twenty quotes - before the dorm room door opened again. Another girl stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, staring at Dinah intently. "Seriously?" the girl said. "You're smoking already?"

Dinah shrugged and laughed three times, exactly. "Yeah. I guess I am. Problem?"

"Yes," the girl said, shutting the door and sitting down on the floor, Dinah and Ally's mess of suitcases around her. "You didn't invite me."

Dinah tossed the girl a cigarette before saying, "Ally, this is Normani. Normani, this is Ally. We're all friends now."

"Want one?" Normani asked Ally. Ally was about to say no, really, but something about Normani made her say yes. Well, Normani was really - really - pretty, for one. Her long dark hair flowed perfectly around her sculpted jawline. Her eyes were a deep brown colour, which perfectly complimented her face. She was wearing a tight denim vest and tight jean shorts, but she was just naturally beautiful. 

"Oh, so now you say yes, huh?" Dinah scoffed. "Fine." Normani tossed a cigarette and a lighter up to Ally. Thankfully, she'd been watching Dinah light them for a while, so she knew how to do it. Except, as soon as she put the cigarette to her lips and tried to breathe in, she coughed up a storm and couldn't take another breath. 

"Yeah, I was expecting that," Normani laughed. "Welcome to the club, though. It's a joyride."

"Hey, yeah, speaking of which, where's Lauren and Camila?" Dinah asked. 

"They went to France for the summer," Normani replied, shrugging. "So...they'll probably be late coming back, the lucky bastards."

"Yeah, they get to miss language class," Dinah laughed. "Ally! You speak any other languages? No one's allowed to speak English in that class."

"I speak Spanish," she replied. "Does that count?"

Normani gave her a wide-eyed stare. "C'mon! No fair that everyone else is more culturally enabled than I am. Seriously." 

"You'll do fine," Dinah told Ally. 

"Yeah," Ally said. "I think I'll be just fine here." 


	2. My Thoughts Bring The Rain

***Note = this chapter's going to have a lot of swears in it, and probably the rest of the fic will have swears, so if you're uncomfortable with them I advise you to not read. Otherwise enjoy!!**

Two days later, classes started. To say that they were Unknown would not be enough. They were seemingly impossible. Ally had eight classes that would carry on for the whole year: Languages, Calculus, Gym, Technology, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and a Spare (which she shared with Dinah and Normani, so there was that). When Ally had first found the brochure for this school, she'd been surprised at all the heavy courses offered - but apparently, this school was notorious for having the brightest students in the state. So. There was something. 

But it was definitely Unknown. 

Also, one day later, the infamous bonfire lighting Lauren and her companion Camila (they dated or something?) showed up back from France. Lauren, apparently, had only gone because she wanted to learn French - she was now fluent - and Camila didn't want to be alone all summer (though Ally quickly learned Camila had an arsenal of jokes up her sleeve, always appearing like Dinah's statistics). 

Also, all four of these girls had attached themselves to Ally and didn't stop talking when she was around, so that was nice. 

"Ready for your first Language class?" Dinah asked as soon as Ally leapt down from the top bunk. The two had gotten into a habit of Ally being tossed up and then jumping down onto Dinah's pillows that she'd leave out. Dinah was always up at the crack of dawn anyway, working out and listening to more indie music. "Don't say a word of English or Mr. Rell will fip."

She'd been hearing this a lot. "Si," she responded with, the Spanish rolling off her tongue. 

Dinah just scoffed (she did that a lot). "Yeah, you're ready."

The door opened (despite all of the smoking, Dinah never seemed to lock it) and Normani, Camila, and Lauren all entered. "Smells like shit in here," Lauren remarked. Her eye makeup seemed extra strong today. "Don't you guys know anything?"

Dutifully, Ally turned on the shower vent, which did magic to dispell the smoke. It seemed everybody in this school smoked (except for the preppy rich kids) so hearing shower vents on in the morning wasn't unusual. Everyone was going to develop smoker's lungs, but at least they'd feel calm doing it, Ally supposed. 

"Let's go," Lauren said, shaking her head and glancing around the room. "It's a mess in here. Don't like it." Her voice was tinged with a small French accent. Her words were true, though - Ally still hadn't unpacked her suitcase. 

"Always the clean freak," Dinah said, laughing, but she ran her fingers through her hair and walked to the door, Ally close behind. Dinah towered right over her so she couldn't see where she was going as the five of them walked down the hallway, mingling with the other students who were going their seperate ways. 

"I'm going to get trampled," Ally muttered under her breath, talking to herself, mostly, but Normani somehow heard her. 

"Here," Normani said, squatting down - stopping the entire hallway traffic to do so - and motioned for Ally to jump up on her back. 

"Uh, are you sure?" Ally asked. The probability of her falling was quite high. 

"Oh, come on!" Normani said, smiling. Ally couldn't say no to the smile, so with a bit of Camila's help, she jumped onto Normani's back and suddenly, Normani was running and they were flying through the hallways, the other three struggling to keep up. She couldn't help it - Ally started laughing at the top of her lungs, right along with Normani. If her hands weren't the only thing keeping her upright, she would've raised them to the sky.

She felt alive.

They arrived at their class all too soon, really. "I'm not going," Normani said just before they reached the door as she let Ally slide off her back. "Not today. There's always essays first day."

"Really, Mani?" Dinah sighed. "Skipping first day?"

"Don't leave us!" Camila yelled dramatically, giving Normani the cutest puppy-dog eyes Ally had ever seen. 

"Nah," Normani said, shaking her head. "I want some air. Gotta clear my head. I'll meet you guys during Spare at the Pond, alright?"

They all shrugged, finally letting Normani go. As she went, her hand brushed Ally's, and it was impossible to deny the small spark of electricity that passed through them. 

Ally's eyes followed her all the way down the hallway.

**********

The day passed by quite uneventfully (with lots of note-taking), but Ally did remember Calculus quite well. Camila was the only person in that class with her, so they sat next to each other and tried to help each other with the impossible problems (Camila was quite good). 

However, Camila's hand kept brushing Ally's, and she kept smiling at her and Ally was sure Camila was looking at her when she wasn't looking. 

It never felt like Normani (who probably didn't even notice that spark that Ally couldn't forget) but it felt like something. 

*********

At the end of the day, they all had their Spare. As soon as Ally stepped outside with Lauren and Dinah at her side (they had seventh period, Physics, together) she felt like she could breathe again. Too many equations that she'd never heard of twelve hours ago were in her head, but now, she could push all of that aside. 

Dinah and Lauren led her behind the school, and into the heavy wooded forest that lay there. Nobody was apparently allowed in here, but everyone went there anyway. And, true to the name, the Pond lay in a small clearing. A few logs had been laid around it, and Normani and Camila already sat on two of them, smoking already. 

After everyone had sat down and gotten their cigarettes - Ally still couldn't take more than two breaths without stifling coughing, and she wasn't sure why. Shouldn't she be getting better at this? - Normani said, "It's the first day, so we have to make this good. I want to live a little."

"What are we doing?" Lauren asked, leaning forward and blowing a ring of smoke out from her lips. Everyone tried to copy her, but no one succeeded. 

"We're going to light the Tree on fire."

This meant nothing to Ally, but the shocked look on the other's faces and the immediate "fucking hell," from Dinah meant it was something huge. "What's the Tree?" Ally asked quietly, afraid of sounding like an idiot. 

"The rich kids - we call them the Preps - have this Tree," Dinah explained, biting her lip. "It's in the party room - yes, we have a party room - and one of their parents or whatever donated it. It's been there for thirty years or whatever. It's a big deal to them."

"You left out the most important part," Normani chided. "Every time a new Prep comes to the school, the other Preps make them take care of the Tree for a week. And the first week, it's Kyla Turner's turn. This morning, she threatend to destroy my books. My books! Like she has the audacity."

"So you want to burn the Tree, and make it look like it was Kyla?" Camila confirmed, trying not to laugh. "Because she doesn't like your books?"

"Well, yeah!" Normani replied like this was obvious. "Who doesn't like my books? Be real here."

"This is why you weren't in class," Lauren sighed, blowing more smoke rings just to spite them. "You were planning this."

"When are we doing this?" Dinah sighed. 

"Now. Let's go. Everyone's in class."

There really wasn't much more to be said. They left.

(Hey, Normani really wanted this, and for some reason - she really, really wasn't sure why yet, but she'd figure it out - that made Ally really want this, too). 

**********

Ally had never stood guard before. It was a new experience. The hallways were totally empty, but it only made sense to assign a guard, and since she was the newbie, it was automatically Ally's job. Nobody else wanted to miss the "excitement." Ally couldn't say she was disappointed. 

"Are you done yet?" she hissed. 

"Almost!" Normani whispered back. It was truly amazing. After picking the lock to Kyla Turner's dorm (who Ally didn't even know), Normani had confidently walked in and turned the lamp on Kyla's desk over and shattered the bulb, so it would look like it had fallen over and somehow caught the Tree on fire. Truth be told, the Tree was more like a bush, but whatever. 

Ally heard the click of a lighter and then the four girls came running out of the dorm, closing the door, and then without a word they bolted down the hallway. On the way, Normani grabbed the fire alarm and pulled it in one seamless motion. Everyone ran out, and they joined the panicked crowd.

It was genius. 

Apparently, during a fire alarm, the students had to gather out on the field. Normani led them to the front row of teenagers, just so they wouldn't miss any action. The grin on her face was both beautiful and contagious. 

After about half an hour, the Dean of the school walked onto the field, something shiny in his - fuck. 

He was holding the lighter. Normani's lighter. 

They were screwed. 

"I think we all know," he yelled slowly, his voice deep. He spoke so loudly he didn't even need a megaphone or a microphone or anything for them all to hear, "That this was intentional. So. If the owner of this lighter - which, I add, is against the school code - can come forward, we won't punish all of you."

Fear was pulsing inside Ally's system. She felt like the other four should be freaking out, too, but they all looked like they'd been here before. Fuck, they probably had. Normani even had the nerve to snicker when Kyla came out of the building, tears streaking her face. (The snicker was really cute, though). 

"This is the final warning," the Dean called. "Every single one of you will be suspended. Yes, I can do that. Yes, I will do that. That's your permanent record, ladies. And even when that's over, an investigation will go on, and we will find the guilty party."

Well, that did it. Normani was clearly not coming forward, and even so, Ally couldn't let her take the blame. "It's mine," she yelled before she even realized what she was doing. 

What was she doing?

The Dean's eyes narrowed and everyone looked at her at once - though how they could see her she'd never know. She tried to appear confident but damn, it was really hard. This was a mistake. This was such a big mistake. This was just a little too Unknown for her. "Alison Hernandez," he said, biting his lip. How did he even know her full name? "Well. This is your first offense, am I right?"

"Yes," she squeaked out. 

He thought for what seemed like an eternity before saying, "Well, fine. Kitchen duty for the week. But if you do anything like this again, then you will be suspended. Do I make myself very clear?"

"Yes, sir," she said. 

"Oh, and the lighter's mine," he said. "Good day to you all."

The entire field let out a collective breath and the students dismissed themselves, heading back to classes or dorms. Kyla was still crying, and casting Ally angry looks, muttering to a bunch of the Preps who did not look happy with her. She'd just made herself the enemy of the entire Prep population of the school - which was at least 60%. This wasn't going to go well. 

She turned her eyes back to her friends - a new concept for her - and expected them to be incredulous, but they were all smiling. "I knew she'd pass," Normani said happily, fist-bumping Ally's shoulder. 

"Pass?" she whispered. "What - that was a test?"

"Yeah," Lauren said. "Normani made us all do it. But you passed."

"So you got me - what, Kitchen Duty? - to prove...what?" She wasn't really angry, she was just...surprised. (And really happy that Normani deemed her worthy). 

"You had to prove your loyalty," Normani explained. "And now I know I can trust you. C'mon, let's go back to the Pond. Welcome, Ally."

"Who has a longer name, apparently," Dinah cut in, laughing, Camila joining in. 

Ally found herself following them all to the Pond, but mostly she was following Normani. She was expecting a thank-you for getting her out of trouble, but apparently, she just needed to earn "trust," something she thought they already had. She thought that she'd get something...more, more than trust, which was so trivial, from that.

 George MacDonald said, "To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved."

That quote scared Ally. 

This was the first time she'd disagreed with another person's remembered words. 


	3. I Can See Your Hurricane

***Note = sorry things have been moving kinda slowly! I promise this chapter that things are going to pick up really, really fast! (Also, French isn't my first language, or my second, or anything...I'm just learning it in school, so my deepest apologies if the grammar of the words are wrong, no disrespect is intended at all. Thank you and enjoy!**

Kitchen Duty really, really sucked. 

It wasn't as if Ally just had to help out in the kitchen - no, she had to clean the dishes. All the dishes. Of every single person in the school that ate in the cafeteria. She supposed she was grateful it was only at dinner she had to stay full-time (nobody was going to let her miss Chemistry. It was the only class she shared with Normani and only Normani) but still. She'd never look at dishes the same way. 

Camila told her - in great detail - about how when she was put to the "test" she'd had to weed the entire front lawn and back lawn, and Lauren apparently had to wash all the floors, so Ally sort of got off lucky. Dinah and Normani never took the test. They invented the test, the lucky bastards. 

Still, though. It felt like being nice - for Normani - wasn't worth it. 

**********

During Calculus that day, Camila grabbed Ally's hand. 

It wasn't like they stared in each other's eyes before and during and after or Ally asked her too. Camila just flicked her pencil a little too far onto Ally's desk, moved over to grab it and took hold of Ally's hand instead. And Ally didn't even pull away. Camila's hand was warm, and soft, and gentle, and she wasn't being forceful or rude and Ally knew if she pulled away Camila wouldn't hold on. 

But Ally didn't pull away. Not then, not five minutes later, not until the class was over and they both had to go to gym. And when their hands stopped touching, Camila gave her a quick look before hurrying down the hallway, drawing into herself. 

They didn't talk at all during gym. Everyone knew something was up, but Ally wasn't quite sure what that was until she looked at Normani's back (while they were doing laps) for a solid ten minutes. 

An Unknown quoter (anonymous quotes were the best, really) said once, "You're not afraid of love, you're just afraid of not being loved back." And that was true. Ally was afraid of not being loved back, she supposed. 

Maybe Camila just felt the same. 

**********

"Je pense," Lauren sighed, speaking French, purposefully sitting closer to Dinah so she could take a whiff of her food, "Je pense nous allons raid la partie, est-ce que pensez-vous?" They were all sitting around the Pond, after school was over, and Lauren had not said one word of English yet.

"I went to France," Camila laughed, "But I didn't learn the language." She was sitting far away from Ally, on the log farthest from her. It was like, because Ally hadn't done anything about it, Camila felt like Ally had already said no. Thing was, Ally wasn't sure if she had to do anything about it anyway. She'd never been in this situation. Actually, she'd only known Camila for...a week? Two weeks? It seemed like everything was moving too fast. 

So did she care the way she should to say something? 

"C'mon, speak English," Dinah complained. "I can't make fun of you if I don't understand what you're saying." She got an elbow in the ribs for that one. 

"For those culturally illiterate," Lauren said, making everyone groan in annoyance (the sentence made no sense anyway, and there was no one else on the planet who was as fluent in as many languages as Lauren), "I said - 'I think we're going to raid the party. What do you think?'"

Instantly, Normani clapped her hands, perkiness filling her body. "Yes! I heartily agree with that statement."

"Oh, yeah," Ally said, "The Preps are having a party, aren't they? No poor kids allowed?" Ally came from more of a middle class family, but compared to the Prep kids whose parents didn't have to scrape money out of savings accounts to send them here, she was dirt poor. 

"And they always fucking get away with it," Dinah said, shrugging. Ally had noticed that about Dinah - nothing bothered her. She was always so...so calm, so complacant. Ally wished she could be like that sometimes. 

"How are we raiding it?" Normani asked Lauren. The latter girl looked quite surprised to be making the plans - normally that was Normani's job. 

"We'll pretend to be Preps," Lauren reasoned, slowly thinking it out, "And then...destroy the place. Oh, and steal all their booze."

"Don't tell me we're lighting another fire," Dinah groaned, but she did perk up at the mention of stealing the liquor. 

"No, we've already done that. Fire is permanently the symbol of Ally," Normani laughed. Ally knew she was joking, but she liked that comparison. She wasn't short and tiny anymore. She was fire, burning bright. 

"No," Camila agreed. Ally saw her smile when Normani mentioned how she was like fire, and that made Ally smile a little, too. "We could call the cops on them?"

"Oh, we'll do that," Normani agreed. "We'll do that and a lot more."

**********

"This dress is too long. Pass the scissors."

The scissors Lauren had been using came flying over the curtain Ally was using as her divide (they'd split the room in five and were all changing at once to save time) and she caught them just in time to avoid dying by eye-stabbing. That would've been embarrassing and hard to explain. 

Carefully (she'd taken a few sewing classes. A few) Ally cut the dress so it ended at just below her knees. She needed to be able to walk in it, and this was the best way...the flats she wore were almost too small, but better too small than too big. 

"Where'd you get all this again, Mani?" Camila called from her section of the room. 

"I stole it," Normani said, her tone making it sound like it was obvious. "I guessed on the sizes. Stole one thing from one different Prep, so on. How else would I get it?"

A couple weeks ago Ally would've been horrified. Now, it seemed normal. Funny, that. 

"Ready!" Lauren called out. All four other girls also gave out the ready calls, and then they all unhooked whatever covering they were using for their section. 

And damn, they all looked fantastic. 

"Right," Normani said, obviously pleased at what she saw (Ally would never tell but the way she smiled at her made her happy and made her melt a little). "Camz - sorry, girl - lose the bow. Lauren, cut the sleeve off. Dinah, stop smoking, for someone's sake! Ally, darker shade of red for your lips. Otherwise - we look like Preps, girls."

"Do we have to talk like Preps?" Dinah sighed, reluctantly stomping on the remains of the cigarette. She had plenty more in her pocket, though - they all knew that. 

"I don't want to talk to any of them," Lauren scoffed, taking the scissors back from Ally and cutting the sleeve off - which, remarkably, did make her outfit look that much better. "I just want to blend in. That's all. Just blend in."

"Okay, okay!" Normani said, holding up her hands. "Whatever you say. We all know the plan, anyway. Dinah's planting the pot, Ally's planting the ID's, Camila's planting the stolen stuff, and Lauren and I will steal the liquor. And then I'll call the cops."

"Stealing the dresses was bad enough," Ally muttered, laughing a little, "so I don't want to know how you have fake ID's, on top of the pot that you never explained to me how you guys get."

"There's a corner store down the road," Normani said, shrugging. "I go there. I know someone there. You know. History, and all that. He gives it to me for free."

"Are we gonna do this or not?" Dinah asked. "Let's go!"

So they did. 

**********

The Preps held their party in a spare, seperate building of the school (they were allowed to do things like that). The sound traveled to Ally's ears first, before the smell of perfume and body sprays. Loud pop music - Dinah looked repulsed that alternative indie stuff wasn't playing - filled the entire area. 

"Everyone good?" Normani asked, looking back at them one more time. When everyone nodded, she went her seperate way, as did everyone else. They weren't going to arrive together. That way, in case one of them got caught, the other four wouldn't be in jeopardy. Ally herself rounded around the clearing and then approached from the back, wishing that she had a pair of earplugs to drown out the noise that was only getting louder. 

How on earth were the Preps allowed to do this on school property? If any of the poor kids tried this, they'd be expelled instantly. Money can do strange things. 

Taking a deep breath, Ally walked forwards and towards the entrance. She tried to make herself appear confident, but she wasn't sure that that would be enough. She just wasn't Prep-like. But she walked in the entrance anyway, and nobody tried to stop her. Weird. 

Inside was even crazier, to say the least. Hoardes of kids were jumping around and dancing to some pop-dubstep music and holding cups of soda or beer or vodka even, Ally wasn't sure. She grabbed one off of a table just for fun. Maybe it was drugged, maybe not - she honestly didn't care. She'd never had liquor before. 

She tried a sip, made a face, and spat it out. She wasn't trying that liquor anymore. 

Anyways. Camila - her heart jumped to her mouth for some reason - had fashioned a pocket in her dress, so she reached in and took a fake ID that Normani - her heart fluttered this time - had made "for" some of the Preps, and slid it on the table, quickly walking away. She passed Dinah once, she was pretty sure, but they didn't make eye contact. 

She hid a few more ID's, just slipping them on places that the cops would find, before someone grabbed her shoulder and she turned around to find herself face to face with - 

Kyla Turner, the girl who's room they'd set on fire, the girl who knew who Ally was - the girl who thought Ally was the only one who did it. 

"You shouldn't be here," she hissed. "What are you doing? What are you doing?"

"I'm - I got an invitation," Ally whispered, saying the first thing she could think of and backing up. Kyla's eyes were blazing with anger and she was quite - quite - a bit taller than Ally. Only a fool wouldn't be intimidated. 

Brandon Mull once said, "Running towards danger is foolhardy...but so is closing your eyes to it..." Ally had once agreed, but in this moment, she decided that she'd rather focus on the first part of his words and not run towards danger. 

She turned and ran. 

It didn't take long before she ran right into Camila. "Hey," she panted, "Are we done? Kyla saw me."

"We're done," Camila decided. "Let's go." Grabbing Ally's arm, the two ran out of the party, going through the crowd of drunk and dancing students - there were too many of them for them all to be students, so that was strange - so no one would notice them. When they made it outside, Dinah ran up to them, panting as well. 

"Where are Lauren and Normani?" she asked, but Ally and Camila just shrugged. 

"We've got to find them," Ally said, pulling her arm out of Camila's grip. Camila instantly looked slightly hurt, which made Ally feel guilty, but... "What if someone saw them? Kyla saw me."

"Kyla's going to have it out for you," Dinah laughed. "Let's go back to the dorm room. I hear sirens. They've done their job already."

She was right - as soon as Ally listened a little harder, she could hear police sirens in the distance, and coming closer. Running again, the three moved away from the party and the noise (Ally could finally think again) until they made it to their dorm room - 

\- where Normani and Lauren were lying on the floor, sipping half-heartedly at a few bottles of booze. 

Normani just looked at them. "Well? What took you so long?"

**********

Half of the Preps were expelled. The Dean didn't have much choice - the police came and found all the incriminating evidence. They avoided the jail sentence, but they weren't allowed to come back to the school. 

Kyla Turner was expelled, so they all dodged a bullet there. Ally hoped. 

They were all in Ally and Dinah's dorm room with cigarettes in their mouths - well, not Ally. She still couldn't get through one without her chest tightening and coughing up a storm - so the room was filled with smoke, but they didn't mind. The Dean didn't even care about things like that now. 

"I think class is in two minutes," Lauren finally said after a long period of silence. 

"Yeah, but it's just Language," Dinah sighed, attempting to blow a smoke ring and failing - instead, she blew it on Ally's face, making the smoke enter her nostrils before she could even move. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Ally said, coughing a couple times. She got that tight feeling in her chest again. Seriously, shouldn't she, like, build up an immunity to this or something? How did they even do it?

"Actually, we should go," Normani said. "Can't believe I'm saying that. But Camz and I present today. Right?"

"Right," Camila said. "I'm speaking Spanish, you're speaking...German?"

"Whoa," Lauren laughed. "Way to pick a difficult language. German has three genders. French only has two - Ally, are you okay?"

No. She was not okay and she didn't even know why. Her chest wasn't opening again and she couldn't stop coughing, she couldn't breathe and she didn't know why. 

"She's not okay," Camila cried, instantly coming to Ally's side and pounding on her back a few times, trying to clear her airways. "Is she choking?"

"No," Ally whispered, but it came out more like a wheeze. Every time she tried to take a short breath, she just wheezed loud enough to hear. 

"Call 911," Lauren said suddenly, jumping up. "Do it! I think - I think it's an astham attack?"

Weren't those not supposed to be serious? Ally'd never been an asthmatic...she was losing it. Her eyes were spotting and she couldn't see more than two feet in front of her. 

"The smoke," Dinah said. "The vents - they're not on!"

People were saying more things and someone opened the door from outside, but Ally couldn't hear them. She just kept coughing, trying to clear her airways. She couldn't. 

Camila was holding her back up, but Ally stopped trying. Her lungs were snapped close as far as she knew. She slumped backwards into Camila's arms and closed her eyes. 

She was pretty sure she stopped breathing, too. 


	4. These Droplets On My Eyes

***Note = This fic is turning out a lot shorter than I wanted it to be. But oh well. Hope you enjoy anyway!**

Darkness was terrifying. 

Not just the scary "there's a spider over there" terrifying. Seriously, horrifically, terrifying. Ally couldn't move. She didn't know where she was or what happened and for a second, she was sure she was dead. 

She remembered falling into Camila's arms and then - just black. Black for eons, for days, for weeks, for who-knows-how-long. And it probably wasn't going to change. Didn't she stop breathing? Was she breathing now? What did breathing feel like? Did dead people breathe?

That was a stupid question. But if she was dead - was this it?

Her ears started buzzing a little before the dark didn't seem so dark. She felt her chest give way and she - she was breathing? Was she? It felt strange to have clear passage through her lungs. She took a few more breaths before the dark lifted off her eyes and she knew she would be able to open them. 

At first, she wasn't sure if she wanted to. 

But then she did, because she knew she couldn't stay in the dark.

The first thing she saw were lights, blinding her sensitive eyes. The buzzing in her ears slowly subsided until she could hear people muttering beside her. After she blinked a few times, her vision cleared and she could focus on the faces that were sitting beside her - three of them, to be exact. She saw Dinah (who wasn't smoking. Strange), Lauren, and Camila...but something was missing? Wasn't something missing?

She met their eyes before Dinah said, "Hernandez, don't do that again."

"Sorry." Her voice was raspy still, like it had been...before. The attack. Asthma, though? She'd never had an asthma attack before. 

"The doctor said you've developed severe asthma," Lauren said softly - softer than usual, and in English - "From the smoking, and such. So. You should know."

Ally bit her tongue, looking sheepishly at the hospital sheets around her. The whole point of coming here was so she wouldn't be small. But now she was. Actually, she'd never felt smaller...and she was in front of the only people who'd never seen her like this. 

"Nice name, by the way," Dinah said, shocking Ally out of her thoughts. "Alison Hernandez...I can see why you changed it."

"Yeah," Camila agreed. "Nothing personal - but Ally Brooke is a lot more ferocious."

**********

Ally was released from the hospital that day, with an inhaler and a whole bunch of care brochures. Hospitals never ran out of those. When she got back to the school, hoardes of people who she'd never spoken to wanted to know if she was okay. She wasn't. 

Normani wasn't there at the hospital. 

Camila had told her it was nothing personal - "Normani doesn't like suffering," she'd said - but still. Normani was there when Ally had the attack, and she'd helped then so...where was she? It was like a blow to the heart that she'd known was coming. 

The Dean excused Ally from classes that day, so she was just sitting in her and Dinah's empty dorm room - which, for once, did not smell like smoke - when the bell rang and the door opened almost immediately. Camila came in - not Normani. "Hey," Ally said, jumping off the bottom bunk. Dinah was in class before, so she couldn't get onto her own bunk. 

"Hey." Camila bit her lip before sitting down in front of Ally. "So, like - I wanted to talk to you about something?"

And somehow Ally knows exactly what she wanted to talk about. Normally, like she always thought she would before, she'd dismiss it and let Camila know that there was someone (Normani) else, but...

Normani didn't come to see Ally in the hospital. 

And, to be honest, she just wanted to go for it. She wanted to be tall, strong, mighty. Wayne Dier said "Go for it now..." and that was what she was going to do. So, without thinking, she leaned forwards and kissed Camila, right on the lips. 

Although it didn't make Ally feel, necessarily, it still felt nice - it was her first kiss - and Camila didn't pull away, so they stayed like that for a long time, almost too long. Finally, when they both pulled away at the same time, Camila whispered, "Well, I was going to talk to you about math, but, this is really nice too."

Just as she gave Camila another kiss, the door opened and Dinah's shocked voice said, "Get a room that's not my room, guys."

Ally didn't bother looking to see Normani's reaction. It wouldn't be one that she wanted. 

**********

Having someone's hand to hold was nice. Camila's hand was warm and soft and very holdable. It also wasn't awkward anymore. Actually - it was so nice, that Ally didn't even think about how Normani wasn't there for her. 

Dinah had even stopped smoking just because of Ally's asthma. That was also nice, and it showed Ally that she really did have friends, real friends, until she finally realized why Dinah smoked in the first place. 

Ally was up on her top bunk, and Dinah on her bottom bunk. They were both studying and chatting, tossing random, aimless facts at each other, before Ally asked, "What's the capital of Nigeria?"

Silence. 

"Hey, Dinah?" she tried again. "You're the stats person, c'mon."

And then suddenly Dinah started hyperventilating and Ally couldn't see her, but she heard her, and for a second she thought that Dinah was having an asthma attack too, but this was different - Dinah was breathing, but she wasn't at the same time. 

"Dinah. Dinah, hey, hey!" Ally cried, trying to lean over but the bunk was just too high and she was always so short! Dinah didn't say anything, and Ally needed to use the phone and get to Dinah - she didn't have a cell - that was in the corner of the room. Giving it one thought, she jumped off the bed, letting the ground rush up to meet her as she rolled to a stop. 

For a second, she was sure she twisted something in her knee, but she ignored the pain and and crawled next to Dinah, who was sitting up and had her head between her knees. "Dinah," Ally whispered, putting one hand on Dinah's shoulder, scared to do more. "Hey. Hey."

"Can't do it," Dinah was mumbling, over and over again, so low Ally could hardly hear. "I can't do it."

"Breathe," Ally ordered, but it wasn't doing anything and Dinah surely wasn't getting enough oxygen. "Please, breathe!" Nothing she was saying was getting through, so she stood up and ran to the phone, quickly dialing 9-1-1. 

"Please," she said, "My roommate - she's hyperventilating, and it...I think it's a panic attack, and I don't know what to do."

The dispatcher assured Ally that an ambulance was on the way, and told her to just make sure that Dinah kept taking in air. The next call Ally made was to Camila, who burst into their dorm room seconds later, Lauren in tow. Ally didn't call Normani. Lauren did that for her. 

"Dinah," Lauren said, crouching next to her. "Nothing's going to hurt you, you're okay..."

"Dinah's got anxiety disorder," Camila whispered to Ally, never taking her eyes off Dinah but latching her fingers through the smaller girls', "And smoking always calmed her down...I guess she stopped..."

"Because of me," Ally finished, gritting her teeth to stop the tears. Again, she was the baggage, the useless one, the short one. 

The ambulance was quick, and fast, and Dinah was sedated and taken away in seconds. The Dean gave Ally some speech about "being more careful" and "not taking risks" because he'd never called an ambulance to their school, and here they were, doing it twice. 

"I'm sorry," Ally told him, but really, she was talking to Dinah, who was just out of eyeshot now. Lauren stood next to Ally, crying her eyes out - Ally wasn't sure why - and Camila refused to let Ally's hand go. 

Seconds later, minutes later, she wasn't sure, Camila finally left. They kissed once more before Camila released her hand and closed the door, her eyes red and brimming with tears. Was this how it felt when Ally was the one in the hospital? Was this how it felt to stay?

She hardly even noticed that Normani had just left without saying anything, and Ally didn't even know when or why. 

She turned out the lights and stood next to the bunk, looking upwards at her bunk with all her books and everything. She could've gotten up if she tried hard enough, but instead, she lay down on the floor and stared at the ceiling until life felt too empty to live alone, even if she was alone just for the night. 

"Abuja," she whispered pointlessly, allowing herself to close her eyes and go to sleep. "Abuja is the capital of Nigeria."


	5. Your Rain Shields Me

***Note = So there's a lot of swearing in this chapter...and I just want to apologize in advance. Yeah. Enjoy though!**

Dinah came back from the hospital the next day, after she was given some proper anxiety medicine. She promised Ally that she wouldn't go back to smoking, even though it helped. Ally almost told her to smoke anyways. It wasn't fair that she was stopping Dinah. 

And then months passed. 

She wasn't even being figurative. Months actually passed. 

And she didn't even talk to Normani once. 

They were there, hanging out in the same spot with everyone else, but they never spoke. There were a couple awkward times where they made eye contact for minutes, both of them not determined to break, until they had to blink, but still. No words. And Ally didn't feel bad - Normani didn't go to the hospital when Ally was there, and she didn't go to the hospital when Dinah was there, and she didn't apologize in either case. Nobody else seemed bothered by this, but "she doesn't like suffering" wasn't a good enough response for Ally. 

But, of course, then they got locked in a closet. 

To be fair, it wasn't their fault. But apparently everyone else had noticed that the two weren't talking, so Dinah told Ally to go in the closet of the shed (the same one that the Preps had their party in. It wasn't used at all, for anything, now) to see if she could find any leftover booze, and then when she walked in, Normani was already in the closet, the door shut behind her, and locked. 

Five seconds passed. "Don't tell me you planned this," Ally sighed. The closet was pretty big, so she wasn't feeling clastrophobic or anything, but if she had to pick a person to be stuck with, she'd even pick Kyla over Normani right now.  

Normani just raised her hands. "Wasn't me." There was a small click and the light went on, Normani's hand wrapped around a cord connected to a single bulb in the ceiling. 

"So it was probably Dinah," Ally figured. "Great. When do we get out?" Raising her voice, she yelled, "Hey! When do we get out?"

There was no reply. And it was clear neither of them were going to budge, so Ally just sat down on the floor and refused to look at Normani. 

An eternity could've passed before Normani finally said, "So, you're dating Camila."

Ally shot a look of daggers at her. "What's it to you?"

"I don't know. Just saying."

Normani was never "just saying." "We've been dating for months, and you only talk about it now? That just shows how much you like talking to me, apparently." 

At least Normani seemed to understand Ally wasn't talking about her relationship. "Look," Normani said after a while, "I'm sorry I didn't go to the hospital, alright?"

"Why didn't you?"

"I just couldn't."

"That's not good enough."

"I just couldn't."

"I said, that's not good enough."

They stared at each other, each of them shooting looks that could kill, but Ally felt immortal. And then Normani's gaze dropped to the floor, and Ally was worried that she really had killed her. "No, I really am sorry," Normani said quietly, but Ally definitely heard. 

"It's not okay," Ally said, equally as quietly, her eyes trained on Normani's. "But I guess it could be, if you'd just - if you'd just explain, you know?"

"I know."

"I know that you do, which is why that makes it so much more frustrating."

There was a pause. "Why? Don't you have Camila?"

"Yes, of course I have Camila," Ally said, a little too quickly. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well," Normani said slowly, dancing around the words, "Why is it so frustrating if Camila's already there?" The tricky part was, both of them understood exactly what she was implying. 

Ally said nothing so she just stood there, but rage was boiling under her skin. For the first month she was at the school, she'd idolized Normani, she'd felt something for Normani, but now...now Normani was just pissing her off and she had no idea how she felt about her. "Fuck you," she spat finally, taking a step towards Normani, forcing the taller girl to back herself into a corner. Ally never knew she could appear threatening. "Fuck you, Normani Kordei, just fuck you."

Normani's eyes narrowed and pursed her lips, staring down at Ally, but staying in the corner of the dim closet. "Yeah, well, fuck you too, Ally Brooke."

"No, you don't get it!" Ally yelled. If anyone else was in the shed, they surely heard her. "Fuck you for making me feel this way!"

"You don't get it!" Normani yelled, even louder. "Fuck you for making me feel this way!"

They just stood there, an ultimate showdown, locking eyes, both rearing their shoulders back. Ally was making a desperate attempt to appear taller when suddenly a pair of lips crashed down onto hers, making her stumble back. 

Normani's hands grabbed her shoulders and Ally found herself closing her eyes and leaning into Normani's lips, ignoring everything, letting the rush fill her until her fingertips started buzzing and she was sure she was shaking. Normani pushed her against the wall and their lips locked again. 

Ally wasn't even keeping track of time. Suddenly, she found herself on the floor, her hands around Normani's waist and Normani's hands around hers. They were still kissing but Normani was pulling off her shirt and no, that was too much. "I don't like that," Ally said, lifting away from the kiss just to whisper that breathlessly. "Can't we just-," they kissed again, "-stay like this?"

"Definitely," Normani said, entangling herself with Ally, only lifting away once to turn out the light. 

**********

Ally woke up once that night, only to think that she shouldn't be doing this. 

An Unknown person once said, "Today is the last day of some of your life." Therefore she should take risks. "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia," was another quote by Charles Schulz. So therefore she shouldn't take risks. T.S Eliot said, "If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you." So she should just shut up and let life do the risk-taking. 

So many quotes were floating around her head, all conflicting, that Ally soon realized that following another person's guidance wasn't working because every quote was leading her in a different direction and none of them seemed right. Ally would make a quote, but nothing felt exactly right. Nothing sounded as good as everyone else's quotes, but then again, none of them sounded right other...

Did this mean that, all her life, she shouldn't have been following another's words, but spending time finding her own?

It was too confusing. She let herself lie there and let sleep take her again. 

*********

When they woke up that morning, the door was unlocked. There was a note, written in Dinah's writing, in front of the door, reading, "I really hope you've worked it out by now." And for a second, Ally thought they had. She looked back at Normani with a smile. The taller girl was groggily rubbing her eyes and sitting up, and then smiling back at Ally. 

"So what happens now?" Normani asked. 

And that was when Ally realized. She'd just...she'd cheated, really. Sure, they hadn't actually done anything too far, but...still. Her heart felt hollowed out suddenly, and instead of the rage she'd felt last night, she just felt empty and guilt was shredding her. She'd done this. Normani had started it but-

Normani had started it. 

"I can't believe you," Ally whispered, shaking her head and opening the door. Nobody was on the other side, which she was at least grateful for. "You let that happen! You - why do you have to make things so complicated?"

Normani's eyes widened and some sort of emotion, maybe fear, maybe sadness, maybe guilt, entered them. "I'm sorry, I...you didn't say no!"

"That's why I  - no, I didn't say no, I know, I should've, I'm with Camila, not you, you made that clear in the months you didn't talk to me!" she yelled. It felt like last night never happened suddenly - but Ally knew she'd never forget. 

"I'm sorry," Normani said, her voice strained and helpless. "I don't know what you want from me."

"I wish," Ally said, her voice shaking, her feet stumbling backwards and away, just away, "I wish that I'd never met you."

She didn't wait for Normani's response. She turned and shut the door again. It might've locked, but she didn't really care.

**********

Ally sat with her back to the door for a solid ten minutes, debating whether or not she should go in. 

She was sure she could hear Normani crying on the other side, but she ignored it and focused on her own thoughts instead, for once. What would happen if she did go in, hug Normani, calm her down? What would Camila say? The guilt would be huge, but...in a way, she still longed for Normani. 

And if she didn't go in, maybe she'd always regret it. 

This was definitely Unknown. 

Her mind flashed back to one day that they were in the Pond, by the logs...Normani was talking about the actual pond. And the flower. There was this white flower at the bottom of the pond, a single flower. Just one. 

She'd said 'When it stays there, it reminds me of how truly alone I am.' 

Ally got up and left the still sobbing Normani alone. 

The door was definitely unlocked, but she still didn't care. 

*********

Ally made it halfway back to the dorm to find and murder Dinah  - she was just pushing open the doors to the building - when the scent reached her nose. It smelt like burnt toast, like the time Camila had tried to make pancakes and failed, like the time she'd inhaled too much cigarette and nearly died...

Smoke. It smelt like smoke. 

Already she could feel her heart pounding as the memory of almost choking on air came back. It haunted her, it did, to know that she could die any moment, what with the way her lungs were. But still, she turned towards the smoke, trying to figure out what was burning. 

And she was really, really glad (and not) that she did.

The entire shed was on fire, the shed she was just in. The right half was completely alight, and the wood on the left side was crackling and sparks were getting ready to burst into flame. There was no way a fire could spread that fast...unless there was a fuel source around it...

Unless it was intentional. 

She stood there for three, four, five seconds, wind whipping her hair back, until a sharp scream from inside the school pierced the air and Ally sprang out of her state. Normani was in there. She didn't even think about the fight, what had happened, anything. Her legs moved faster than they ever had and she was running, screaming at the same time, screaming her name, Normani's name. It fell off her tongue lightly. It had always felt right. Why did she only realize that now?

The smoke was billowing out of the shed but Ally ran into it, screaming again as she heard the roof break and fall, crumbling to pieces on the ground. Normani was still in there. Normani hadn't come out. 

She screamed again, not even caring how much smoke entered her lungs, when a strong pair of arms wrapped around her waist and her knees just gave way and she fell to the ground. The shed was right in front of her, and ash was flying forwards and streaking her face, but somebody was pulling her back, away from the heat and the flames and Normani. "Let me go!" she screamed as loud as she could. "Let me go, let me go, let me fucking go!"

"Ally. Ally!" It was Dinah. Slowly, Ally let her head fall against Dinah's chest. Smoke kept entering her lungs, and when she opened her mouth, her voice was strained and raspy. 

"Normani," Ally choked. "Normani's inside." 

A tear fell down her cheek as Dinah slowly let her go and stepped forwards, joining the growing throng of people. Ally blinked, trying to make sense of the spinning world, and saw Camila, staring at her with a hurt look on her face. "I'm sorry," Ally whispered, thinking that maybe Camila knew what had happened already. 

"I understand," Camila said, but she didn't, she didn't, nobody did. 

Lauren rubbed Ally's shoulders, trying to calm her, but Ally let out another hoarse scream as a fire crew came forwards, trying to extinguish the still growing flame. The flames didn't fight. Neither did Ally. 

Her lungs were starting to seize up anyway. She closed her eyes and let the cracking of the wood and her heart drown away. 

**********

Ally's eyes blinked open to white walls and bright lights. A low hum sounded through wherever she was, along with low murmuring. It looked like the hospital, but this time, Ally wasn't a patient. 

"You're awake," she heard. Raising her head, she found herself curled up on a small chair - the one time her size came in handy, she supposed - and saw Dinah, Lauren, and Camila all on chairs beside her. It was definitely the waiting room - she'd been here when Dinah was admitted for her panic attack. 

"Where's Normani?" were the first words out of her mouth, and she immediately regretted it. Camila's eyes narrowed, and Dinah and Lauren just looked regretful and sad. And then Ally remembered.

"Oh my god," she whispered. "Where is she?"

"Ally..." Lauren started, but Camila just put a hand on her knee. 

"She's down the hall," Camila sighed, staring at Ally with sad eyes that Ally could barely take. 

"I'm sorry," she said, but then she got up and tried not to sprint down the hall. Normani's room wasn't hard to find - she could find it anywhere. Nobody was in it. Why weren't the others in it? Were they waiting for Ally to wake up? Or were...were they repaying what Normani had done to them, and not visited her in the hospital?

Normani looked tiny. The white bed swallowed her up until Ally could barely recognize the girl who had first welcomed her, who'd gotten her Kitchen Duty. God. That seemed so insignificant now.  Burns covered her arms, her face, and all the skin Ally could see. Her eyes were closed, her hair plastered to her forehead. 

Now Ally felt like the tall one, but she didn't want to be. 

"I'm here," Ally whispered, sitting down next to Normani, clasping her weak hand. "I'm fucking here, okay? I don't care if you weren't here for me. That doesn't matter anymore. I need you to wake up, Normani. I need to see those eyes."

There was a brief pause. 

"Becuase I found myself in those eyes, and I'm afraid I'm losing myself again."

*********

Ally hadn't even realized that she'd dozed off until a harsh beeping broke her out of her sleep. She sat bolt upright, trying to figure out what was wrong, before three different nurses ran into the room, one of them taking Ally's arm and forcefully dragging her out. "Hey!" she cried, "What are you doing? No, stop, that's my...my friend, stop, stop!"

Then she realized that the beeping sound was Normani's heartbeat. 

Or, lack of one. 

"No," she whispered. "No way. No. Mani! Mani, Normani, please!"

The door was shut in her face and the blind pulled down. 

Ally was told to go back to the waiting room. She knew Normani would make it. She always did. 

*********

Forty minutes later, a doctor emerged, one of the ones Ally knew was working with Normani. "How is she?" Ally immediately asked, jumping up, much to everyone else's dismay. It was like her friends had no confidence in Normani. Not like Ally did. 

"We managed to get a heartbeat," he began, avoiding eye contact, "But when we brought Ms. Kordei into surgery, her heart stopped again, and we couldn't get it started again. I'm sorry. Normani had passed."

Immediately, the world felt empty. 

"W-What?" Ally asked, her voice quavering. "What are you saying?"

"Ally," Dinah said softly, coming up behind her, "I think...I think we should go...there's nothing left here..."

"How are you so calm?" Ally whispered. "Saying we should go back...she'd dead. She's fucking dead."

"Don't you think we know that?" Lauren said, standing as well. Camila remained seating, Ally vaguely noted, but she probably wouldn't remember. Nothing felt quite real. 

"She's dead," Ally repeated, but she let Dinah grab her wrists and pull her out of the bright waiting room and into a taxi and into the dorm room and onto the bed, but she didn't fall to sleep, not at all that night. 

Normani'd never get that flower now. That white flower...Ally had never really cared about it, but now she felt like that white flower, all alone in a deep pond that was crushing her. 

Normani was gone. And the last thing Ally had said to her was that she wished they'd never met. 

Now it was like they never did. 


	6. And I Feel Like I'm Drowning

The funeral was, by far, the worst thing Ally had ever done in her entire short life. 

Everyone was crying at the same time and offering Ally their condolences; but after they realized she wasn't crying (she had no idea why not), they'd move on and just ignore her, figuring she and Normani hadn't been that close. But, then again, they hadn't been close to Normani either. Ally had no idea who half of these people were. 

Kyla Turner even showed up, dressed in her school uniform from her new school. Ally didn't know if she was proving a point, but she seemed genuienly upset. Funerals did that to people. One day, they don't care, and the next, they do. It's like they try to make themselves better people by pretending to be sad or something.

Finally, when the crowd was leaving and Ally was taking her last look at the dark casket that was being covered up in the ground (that didn't even let her see Normani's face), someone grabbed her hand and pulled her away, taking her around to the back of the graveyard where nobody else was, next to the fence that sectioned off the dead from the rest of the world. Before she knew who was taking her, Ally still knew. "We need to talk," she and Camila both said at the same time. 

"You first," they said in unison once more, and Ally began to wonder why she'd screwed up what they had so badly. 

"Okay," Camila said after Ally said nothing, "I need to know exactly what you did with Normani when Dinah locked you in the closet."

"What's going to happen when I do?" She shouldn't have asked, but she had to. 

"I just need to know."

So Ally told her. "I yelled at her. She yelled at me. She kissed me. I didn't stop her. I should've stopped her. We slept together. We woke up. I told Normani that I wished I'd never met her. And then someone lit the cabin on fire."

Camila only seemed to care about one thing. "You slept with her." Her tone was flat, but Ally saw the shaking in her eyes. 

"Not that like," Ally whispered, "But, we fell asleep, next to each other, and her arms were around me."

"Were your arms around her?"

Ally didn't answer, but at the same time, her silence did. 

"Did you think of me?"

Ally truly didn't know how to answer, so she just said, "Yes, I did. I knew that I cheated. I felt the guilt. I was wrong."

"But you didn't stop?"

"No. No, I didn't stop, even when I knew I should've."

Camila pursed her lips and paused, leaning heavily on the fence, even though the points at the top were digging into her skin. "Okay. Well, I guess it's safe to say that this relationship is over."

"I...I-"

"No," Camila said abruptly. "You don't get to do the whole 'I'm sorry' thing. Normani's dead, I know, I'm sad too, okay? I've known her for way longer than you, though. And I expect these things from her. But not from you. You did what you did. I don't care if it didn't go that far, but...you did them, and you knew that what you were doing was wrong."

Camila paused to take in a breath, so Ally jumped in with, "I know. If you want it over, it's over. Goodbye."

"Just like that?" Camila said, narrowing her eyes. "You don't care? About - about me?"

"No," Ally said. "I guess I don't." She didn't know why she was saying these things. But she just didn't care. About anyone. 

Camila looked like someone had slapped her as Ally turned and walked away, only looking back in Normani's direction once.

**********

Ally took the longest walk she'd ever taken, and tried to sort through some things, but it was all just too much and she stopped trying.

The sky was turning into pink and gold as the sun fell down when she realized she had no idea where she was. Her feet had just been moving her and she'd just kept walking, never stopping, never tiring. 

She figured she'd just turn back the way she came when she her - Kyla Turner, and other people from whatever school she was going to now (they all had the same uniform). Except, save for Kyla, they were all male, tall, strong, and looking very angry. "Ally!" Kyla called, nearly scampering over. 

"Kyla," Ally said, disappointed in how weak her voice sounded, "Who...what are you doing here?"

"You want to know who these are?" she asked, cockily. "These are my bodyguards. I bought them. Money can go a long ways."

Ally wanted to burst out laughing. She would've, if she hadn't been so buried in emotion. "You bought bodyguards?"

"Yeah," she said, like it was the most normal thing to do, "and I believe I still have a bone to pick with you."

"Normani's dead," Ally retorted bluntly. "That's...don't you think that's enough?"

"Oh, no," Kyla said, shaking her head. "See, I figured Normani was really behind what got me expelled. So I already got even with her. But you...well, you carried out her plan, didn't you?"

Ally froze suddenly, pieces clicking into place. "You lit the fire? You fucking killed her? You lit the fucking fire?"

Kyla didn't even react, but Ally took some steps backwards, shaking her head, goosebumps filling her arms. "I didn't mean to kill her," Kyla finally said, "But...well, oh well. Things happen."

"You're sick," Ally hissed, breathing heavily, "And disgusting."

"That's what I was hoping for," Kyla said, a twisted smile appearing on her face. She turned towards her bodyguards, and Ally really should've started running. "Teach her a lesson. We already talked about this."

The three males seemed reluctant, but one stepped towards Ally and grabbed her arm just as she regained her senses and began struggling. "What are you going to do?" she yelled as loudly as she could, but no one was around. "What sick games are you playing, Kyla?"

Kyla didn't answer. The other two men came closer to Ally, all grabbing her and holding her steady, so she was frozen no matter how much she tried to yell and scream. One of them covered her mouth and then asked Kyla, "So, what? Are we taking her? Or...?"

"Hold that thought," Ally heard Kyla say. There was a series of tones and then she was talking again...on the phone...while Ally was being held here...

This was the most ridiculous situation that she'd ever been in. 

"Okay," Kyla yelled, finally, "I lost my safehouse. My dad's being really unfair. Just make sure she remembers me."

Suddenly, they all let go of her, and she screamed again for help, but then she was being propelled and she hit the ground, hard, the left side of her body smashing into the pavement, her head nearly missing the brunt of the impact. Her wrist twisted under herself and she heard something snap. Her shoulder let out a sharp jab of pain and she let out a low breath, trying to regain her breath. 

One of them kicked her stomach, making her curl up on herself, before they all left, leaving her lying in the middle of the empty road. 

They'd only been able to throw her because she was so small, but she'd never felt smaller as she just laid there. No cars came. No people came. She was alone. If Normani was here, she'd be able to get Ally out of this. 

But that was it, wasn't it? Now, her whole life would be "If Normani was here" and "If I'd done this differently". 

She lit Kyla's Tree on fire, and then Kyla lit her on fire. 

Ally had defended Normani once, but left her alone the second time. 

And now Kyla had come back for Ally, too. And Normani wasn't here to defend her at all. She'd just left her alone. 

Ally got up, breathing heavily as she ignored the pain in her wrist and shoulder, and kept walking down the road, towards where the school was hopefully located. 

She was fucking tired of being alone.

**********

"What'd you do?" was the first thing Dinah asked her as she shuffled into their dorm room near midnight, seven hours after the service. 

"I went for a walk," Ally said quietly, moving over to stand below her bunk. Her shoulder and wrist were throbbing immensely and she wanted to scream. 

"No," Dinah said, standing up and towering over Ally, but for once, she didn't look so tall. "Why'd Camila come in here crying and begging to know what she did wrong?"

"I don't know. Ask Camila." Ally's eyes weighed the distance between the floor and the bunk. 

"I'm asking you!" Dinah reached out a hand, but Ally leapt into the air instead, using Dinah's bunk as a foothold and clawing her way up to the top bunk. When she finally flopped down on the bed she saw spots in her eyes and she couldn't think because of all the pain on the left side of her body but she just ignored it, biting her lip so hard that she didn't scream. Maybe she always could've done that, if she hadn't used to be so scared. 

Dinah stared at her from below, but then moved away into her own bunk, opting not to say anything. Ally didn't feel bad, or remorse. She lay back in her bed and pushed Normani from her brain, from her memory, from her heart. She pushed her away and locked everything in a little corner that she knew she'd put off opening. She turned it all off. Her left side turned from jabs into a dull ache. 

There's an advantage of feeling nothing. You don't feel fear. You don't feel pain. 

You just feel alone. 

But Ally had always felt alone, for as long as she could remember, so that was nothing new. 

**********

Ally thought a lot that night. 

She'd come here to feel Tall, and Known. To be Remembered. But then with Her (saying her name made her feel again), she'd felt so warm and soft and gentle and strong. And then She left, leaving Ally with nothing, with even less than she started. 

So Ally couldn't be Tall and Known. That just led to heartbreak. And turning everything off - everything - had been so easy, so welcome. So maybe this was it. This is what she should be. This was the New Ally. She simply didn't care. 

She went through every single quote stored in her memory and shredded all the meaning that they had once had. 

**********

Chemistry was the only class that she had shared just with Norma - with Her. 

It felt too empty and lonely for New Ally, so she stopped going. 

**********

She didn't go to Calculus either. Camila kept watching her like a hawk, like she wanted to say something, but never could. Ally didn't know what to say either. New Ally didn't care.

**********

She didn't see anybody about her wrist and her shoulder. They were both bruised so badly her skin tone wasn't visible but she just grinded her teeth and stopped paying attention.

**********

"Ally. Open this fucking door right now, I swear to god!"

Dinah kept yelling at her - or was that Lauren? - but Ally didn't answer. She stayed inside the dorm bathroom, the door locked, staring at herself in the mirror. 

She unzipped her jacket, never blinking, and let it slide to the floor. Her shoulder was clearly visible, along with her wrist; both were bruised beyond belief. It was amazing that she hadn't passed out from the pain. Everytime she moved that part of her body, she felt the pain and terror, but more importantly, she felt Kyla. 

A murderer. And Ally had no proof. 

But the strange part was that Ally didn't even care. What would she care about? Nor - no. See? What mattered?

"Ally, if you don't open this door right now, I swear to god I will murder you."

Ally didn't respond. She just kept staring. And she hated what she saw. 

It wasn't like a "I don't like my appearance" thing. It was everytime she looked in the mirror, she saw her lips, she saw the lips that She kissed, and she saw her shoulder, her wrist, the injuries that had come from Her death. Everytime Ally saw herself, whether she was New Ally or not, her walls began to crack and every feeling she'd denied started rushing in. 

And then she just kept thinking, 'I should've done something, I should've saved her, I should've been brave...'

There was one more thing that Ally wanted to say, and suddenly it was in her throat, in her mouth, but New Ally was stuffing it down and - 

"I should've told her I loved her!"

The cries outside stopped, but Ally just got angry. Her walls were shaking but she needed them, she needed them, she couldn't break - 

The mirror was just staring at her. She wasn't tall enough, strong enough, smart enough, good enough...

For Her. 

"Don't make me say Her name," Ally whispered, to herself, to anybody, "Not Her name. Not Hers."

"Ally!" Lauren's and Dinah's cries faded into the distance, but then Ally heard someone else call her name...someone else Ally had treated poorly. 

"Ally, please open the door," Camila whispered, but Ally heard, she heard. 

Her eyes bored holes into her reflection and she felt her anger levels rising and everything she'd done. She was a horrible person. She was never mad at Normani, or Camila, or Dinah, or even Lauren - she was mad at herself for screwing everything up. She always did. 

She was so, so short. 

Letting out a scream that she didn't know she had, she pulled back her fist and slammed it into the mirror before she could change her mind or do anything at all. 

Pieces of glass rained down from the giant mirror and Ally fell to her knees. She closed her eyes and heard the door finally break in, and three people ran in, one gasping and one muttering and one eerily silent. 

Tears squeezed at the corner of Ally's eyes and she ignored the hands on her shoulders, on her waist. She had just tried to be tall, to be good enough for Her. 

For Normani. 

Ally let out a sob and her walls finally broke down. 


	7. The Clouds Begin To Break

Somehow - Ally doesn't understand how, or why - the three of them brought her over to Dinah's bed and sat her on it, the rest of them sitting around her. Tears clouded her vision but she looked up anyways to see them all staring at her, faces filled with mixes of anger and sadness. 

Dinah was the first to speak. "Ally, look. I know Normani was special to you, but...you don't have a monopoly on her."

Lauren chimed in, "We were her friends too. We're all feeling sad."

Ally looked to Camila, who finished quietly, "And we're all grieving. Not just you."

When Camila's eyes met Ally's, it was like the world stopped for a moment. "I know," Ally whispered. "I'm sorry. You're right."

"We're not trying to shut you down, okay?" Dinah said softly, her hand on Ally's thigh, "But we're all grieving. And it hurts when you ignore us, and I'm sure it's not fun to not let us in. So stop this. Please. We need Ally back."

"Yeah," Ally sighed. "I just - I don't know if I can find her again?"

"And that's why you have to let us in," Camila finished, and suddenly it was just Ally and Camila, sitting alone, and Ally wondered how she ever could've given that up. 

"Okay," Ally said, and then three pairs of arms were around her and she'd never felt more at home. 

**********

And she tried. She really, really tried. 

A day went by, and then two, and finally Ally got a semblance of normality. She and Camila were taking shaky steps, and even though Ally apologized several times, she knew that they'd never quite have what they'd lost again. But that was okay; they both knew that. And  when Dinah's anxiety crept back up and she wanted to reach for a cigarette, Ally always tried to stop her. And even when Lauren shrunk back into the shadows and tried to disappear, Ally brought her back out and let her be seen. 

And yeah, Ally tried to bring Normani back. Not, like, revive her body or anything like that, but...in her mind, Ally always wanted Normani there. Like she was a warmth, or the opposite, or...something. Ally wasn't quite sure. But there was a hole in her head and she wanted Normani's name in it, her essence, her being. 

But that wasn't going to happen. That space would always be blank. 

Three days after her breakdown, she was approached by...actually, she didn't know who she was, but some girl dressed in very Preppy clothes was coming towards her with a big smile. "Hey, Ally," she said, sticking out a hand that Ally reluctantly shook. "I'm Isabel; nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," Ally responded, somehow not surprised that she knew Ally's name.

"So, me and a bunch of my friends are holding a charity event tomorrow in Normani's honour, for victims of arson," Isabel said, and suddenly Ally's heart went cold, "And we need a speaker? And I knew you two were really close, so I was wondering if you would be out speaker."

"Wait," Ally said, "Arson? They know - I mean, they think it's arson?"

"Oh, yeah," Isabel said. The more she spoke, the more stuck-up she sounded. "One of the girls who got expelled, Kyla Turner, she lit the fire! They found her fingerprints, or something? She's going to juvie. Can you believe it?"

Ally definitely could not picture Kyla in juvie, but there was justice in that. "Serves her right."

"Totally. So! Will you do it?"

Ally missed one beat before saying, "Sure."

**********

"You're seriously gonna do it?"

That was Dinah's first question, which Lauren and Camila immediately followed up. "Yeah," Ally said. "I know the Preps are organizing it and everything, but I just want to do this. For Normani."

"None of the money they raise is going to charity," Lauren warned her. "They're all going to keep it. That's what they do."

"I'm not in it for charity." Ally winced and corrected, "I mean, I like charity? But, I'm doing it for Normani. Just Normani."

They were all sitting by the Pond, and slowly Ally's eyes found their way into the water, down to the bottom, and to the wavy sight of the single white flower. It summed up both Normani and Ally perfectly. Her mind flashed back to several months before, when everything was okay - 

_"Mani! You're never going to get it!"_

_Normani dived in the water anyway, her hair flying in the air before she arced and starting swimming below the surface. The four of them crowded around the edge, trying to see how close she was getting, but it was clear the distance was too much. As small as it was, the Pond was deep._

_Slowly, Normani came back up, sputtering slightly. "Stayed under for a long time, though," she laughed._

_"The flower's stuck," Dinah said, reaching out a hand and pulling the soaked Normani out of the water. "What's the deal with that, anyway?"_

_Normani's eyes travelled back down and so did Ally's, both pairs landing on the white plant. "It's all alone," Normani said, "And so am I."_

**********

The stage felt too big. Ally did not feel Tall at all. She wanted the ground to swallow her up and the wind to carry her away as she climbed the stairs and the large crowd quieted. The event was being held outside, with permission from the Dean. The stage had been put up, and a large picture of Normani - not even a good one - was being broadcasted behind Ally. 

When she came face to face with the audience, she almost choked. 

She hadn't brought a piece of paper with her, and she didn't know what she was going to say. But her fingers fumbled with the microphone and brought it down lower to her tiny height, and then tapped it once, bringing the crowd to silence. Isabel and a bunch of other Preps were watching her carefully, no doubt judging her even before she spoke, but her eyes stayed fixed on Dinah, Lauren, and Camila, who had come despite the "Prepness" of the event. 

Ally took a deep breath, found her first sentence, and then began, slowly, calmly, and somewhat controversially. "Normani Kordei," she had to break to breathe again, "was a liar."

A few people in the audience tittered and muttered, but Ally continued anyways, "She was a liar to me, she was a liar to everyone she touched, but most importantly, she was a liar to herself. Normani never understood her full potential, and even if she did, she lied about it to everyone. 

"The first time I met Normani, I thought she was strange. I'd never met someone like her. But somehow, I felt big in her presence, tall, strong, powerful. I felt like I meant something. I'd never felt that before, either. And she never knew that she made me feel that way. I didn't understand it. But some people just have that effect on others, and it's a shame they don't know.

"In fact, back then, I felt empty. I used to fill my brain with quotes in order to feel full, in order to have words in my head that meant something, even if I didn't know what that something was. I know three people that do that, too." Her eyes met Dinah's, then Lauren's, and finally Camila's. They were all staring at her softly and sadly at the same time, and Ally wasn't sure if that was a good thing. "My roommate fills her head with stats, just so she can live up to them. My best friend speaks at least ten languges so she doesn't have to try and make anyone understand her pain. And the girl I used to date, the girl I used to love cracks jokes - or used to, anyways - like no tomorrow just to feel something from life. We all do that, I think." Camila's eyes had a million different emotions running through them, and so did Ally's. 

"But then I lost the need for quotes. Instead I found Normani's words filling me, inspiring me, lifting me to places I didn't know existed. But I went there, with her, and I don't think she even knew she was going. But I did. And I wished that I'd told her."

She had to take a deep breath to stop herself from crying, because she knew what words were coming next. "The last thing Normani said was 'what do you want from me?' I was there. I heard the words. They were desperate words, words full of pleading. And I would've heard more, except then she died. Then that life got cut off.

"And when she died, I died. That hole that used to be filled was empty. I tried to find a quote to fill it. Then I started trying to erase every quote from my head when nothing worked. But you know - I remember one. I remember one that I think Normani would've enjoyed. W.C Fields once said, "If as first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it.'"

A few chuckles later, Ally said, "And although she would've liked it, I think it summarizes me, and a lot of you, I think. Because we all try too hard. I tried to hard to find words that would fill me after she left, because I didn't think I could. But I know now that that space will never be empty again, because Normani taught me to fill it. She taught me how to. She showed me that I was the one responsible to do that, and no one else. And yeah, I'll always miss her, but I know I'm never going to need anything but me to complete me. 

"The last thing I said to Normani, the last thing I'll ever say to her, was 'I wish I'd never met you.'" Ally's breath rattled in her throat. She'd made it this far. She could finish. "I'd like to fix that. There are a million things I'd like to say to her, but Normani..."

She let the breath out, and everything felt okay. "I am honoured to have met you."

Ally stepped back, walked off the stage, was embraced by Camila first and then Dinah and Lauren, and finally, she let herself smile. 

She'd never felt Taller. 

***Note = Hey all! So this is the last chapter, but there will be an epilogue...I hope I tied everything up? Anyways, thanks for reading this, I loved writing it! I'm almost in tears that it's ending!!**


	8. You Were My Storm, Now I Am Yours

***Note = So first off I just want to say thanks for reading this, and reading the whole thing, and ahh!! I'm really sad that it's over, but I'll still take prompts for this verse, so if there's a scene you'd like me to write, then...(although I'm thinking of writing a scene from Normani's perspective? The scene with the fire? So if anyone would like that, I shall!) Just a massive thank you to everyone, especially adttripp, you know why :) (Also sorry for my French, I can't write accents on my keyboard!!)**

It was June 19th, 2015, today. Ally knows she will always remember it well. Today is when she is Ally Brooke, a short name for a tall person. Today is also the day where she's done her first year at Grand Canyon School For Girls. 

"Last day of the year," Dinah sighs, her hands behind her head. "Can you believe it?"

"Nope," Lauren laughs. "'J'adore l'ete!'"

"I thought we agreed, no languages we can't understand," Ally says, but she's laughing. It feels good to laugh. 

"Sorry," Lauren says, shrugging, even though she's lying down. "Old habits die hard, I guess."

They all quiet down for a minute. Moments like that just keep coming around; one of them says something meaningful, and then they all pause, thinking of different things but the same thing all at once. 

And then normally they'd be okay, but Dinah says, "Well then, class, what have we learned this year?" and things get very different. 

"Well," Lauren begins, clicking her tongue once, "I learned French, and a bit of side Italian. I discovered there really is no need for half the things I was taught. I learned to appreciate things while you have them. And I learned that nothing is the end."

"So did I," Camila says quietly, and Ally's heart flutters, but for a different reason that usual. "I learned that sometimes you can't trust your first judgement, and you can't go in head first all the time. I learned to be more careful. And I learned how to forgive."

There's a brief period of silence before Dinah speaks up, "I suppose I learned that trying to avoid something is not going to make it go away. And I learned to not expect things to happen, to learn how to do things yourself."

Ally's the last one to speak, but she's not sure if she's got everything she wants to say down. "I learned to open my heart," she says, and it feels true. "I learned that everything is Unknown, and to call myself that is just labeling the obvious. I learned that no one is going to know me, truly, but myself. And I learned how to do that."

They're all lying in silence then, as if waiting for Normani to speak, because she would've. They know she would've. 

Ally's eyes look over to her right, at the pond, and then at something white being reflected in the water. It takes her a moment to realize - it's the white flower. And when the day is over - it's their Spare right now, the last class of the day - she'll be leaving it behind. Alone. 

So she just stands and reaches back, pulling off her shirt and she shoes so she's in a tank top and shorts. "Are you stripping?" Camila asks. Ally smiles especially long. It's taken Camila a while to start cracking jokes again. 

"Be back soon," Ally says, and then she dives into the water, hoping that this time it'll be different. 

The water feels warm on her skin, refreshing, and somehow her eyes open. Her vision's strange, obviously, but she can see the flower. She swims down for it, already feeling a need to breathe, and reaches out, but she can't quite grab it. It's always farther away than it looks. 

But there is no damn way she's giving up on it. On her. 

She ignores the pressure in her lungs that she shouldn't be ignoring, and swims down even further. Her eyes sting and she wonders if she's going to die down here before she hands close around some petals and she finds the skinny stem and yanks it up. Her fingers tight, Ally uses her last remaining energy and swims, just swims, until her head breaks the surface and someone's hauling her up out of the water and she can breathe. 

"Ally, what the hell?" someone cries - it sounds like Lauren - and then hands are on her back, and finally Ally can open her eyes (when did they close?) and she can breathe. She's okay. And her fingers are still wrapped around the stem of the flower. 

"I got it," she whispers. "I got it. It's okay. I got it. I got her."

"You did." Camila leans down and gives Ally a hug, the first one in a long time. "You always had her."

Ally moves over and lies down in the sun to dry her soaking clothes but she doesn't really care. She just lets the sun beat down on her face and she feels truly content with herself, for the first time in a long time. She doesn't need anyone else's words to tell her that it'll be okay. She knows that it is, and that it always will be. 

"I'm glad I met you guys," Ally says when she knows the time is ticking down. 

"You can't get rid of us that easily," Dinah says, and they all laugh. 

The bells rings and Ally knows it's true.


	9. Missing Scene - The Rain Burns Out

***Note = So hi everyone! Here's a missing scene to If People Were Rain. This is basically the fire scene, where Normani dies, but written from Normani's point of view. I wasn't going to write this, but then I thought "hey why not" and well I really love this verse and a sequel might just happen. So with that said, enjoy!**

Normani's hand touched the cold doorknob, just to check if Dinah had left it unlocked, but of course it wasn't. Originally, when she'd gotten locked in, she'd thought it was a mistake, but now that Ally was sharing her fate, well, she knew what her friends were up to. 

It took her a while to work up the nerve to turn around and face Ally. What the hell was she going to say? But when she finally did, the first thing Ally asked was, "Don't tell me you planned this," and well, that hurt. But she probably deserved it. So they agreed it was Dinah, Normani turned the light on, Ally banged on the door, but no response came. 

Ally wasn't even looking at Normani, and Normani had to say something, so she just said the first thing that came to her head, "You're dating Camila." Wrong thing to say. The sinking feeling in her gut that she'd had ever since Ally's attack suddenly grew larger. 

Ally jumped up and Normani instinctively took a step back. After a few shots were fired, Normani just worked up the nerve and said it. "I'm sorry I didn't go to the hospital." There was so much more she was thinking and she wanted to say it but she couldn't. The hurt look in Ally's eyes grew worse and that hurt far more than not being able to say what she was thinking. 

See, though, the thing was that Normani couldn't take suffering, even in its simplest form. Seeing Ally in the hospital would've killed her. But even worse is when there's suffering that Normani couldn't do anything about. She didn't really understand why life had to have such despair; wasn't it hard enough? 

Normani had seen enough suffering that having anyone else go through it destroyed her. And Ally already had already done that. 

"I just couldn't," Normani finally decided on saying. How could she tell Ally how she felt? There wasn't a word. It was too deep. Telling Ally how she felt was like bearing her soul to her, and she wasn't ready, she just wasn't ready. 

"That's not good enough," Ally replied, her voice even. She had a right to be angry, but still - what did she expect Normani to say?

"I really am sorry," Normani pleaded. Her eyes watered a bit but she choked down the tears like she did every day. 

"If you'd just explain." Ally was begging too. Normani wanted to give it to her but - she couldn't. And they both knew that. 

And Normani didn't know what to say, so she blurted out, "Don't you have Camila?" When she said it, she belived it. Ally had everything. A girlfriend, best friends, a life, happiness, joy. Normani was only inflicting suffering. By being here, she was hurting the one person she'd vowed never to hurt. So why did Ally need her? 

Rage bubbled in Ally's eyes before she stepped forwards and yelled out, "Fuck you, Normani Kordei!" She'd never used Normani's last name. "Fuck you!"

Normani's lips tightened. What was she supposed to say? "Fuck you too, Ally Brooke." She wanted to add 'fuck you for not getting it,' but maybe Ally already did. 

"Fuck you for making me feel this way!"

And, well, Normani wasn't expecting that. She repeated the statement right back to her. What was she going to do with that? What was Normani going to do with that?

Ally said nothing, but Normani thought everything. Her vision was blurring through tears and anger but she just kept looking at Ally, focusing only on her. She needed Ally to know how she felt. It was a second that decided it - a second decided the rest of her life. 

She stepped forwards and kissed Ally, on the lips, for a long time. 

Ally didn't fight it. The smaller girl let Normani kiss her. Neither girl was sure what was going on but their lips stayed locked and it was the sweetest thing that Normani had ever been through. For once, it felt like her life was complete, like the pieces of her puzzle were fitting together. 

They slept side by side that night. The whole time, Normani had a smile on her face.

**********

Rubbing her eyes, Normani sat up, clicking on the light from the one lightbulb. Ally was already standing by the door, holding a note with Dinah's messy handwriting. The door was open and unlocked, but Normani couldn't take her eyes of Ally. Had last night really happened? Had it been so perfect? Had they been so happy? But there was still one question, just one. "What happens now?" she asked. 

Many things could happen. Ally could kiss her again - she liked that option. They could pretend to be together. They could stay friends. Ally could break up with Camila. Honestly, Normani didn't even care. She was just happy that this had happened.

Instead, Ally looked her dead in the eyes and whispered, "I can't believe you. Why do you have to make things so complicated?!"

That was when the guilt and realization flooded into Normani's heart and she realized just what she'd done. "You didn't say no," she said. Why hadn't Ally said no? She could've said no!

"I'm with Camila!" she roared. Normani felt her words like a slap in the face. So much suffering she'd just caused...Ally would tell Camila, maybe, because Ally was a good person, and then Camila would hate her, and Dinah and Lauren would hate her, and...

Ally was a good person. Normani wasn't. 

"I don't know what you want from me." Normani's voice was weak, but honestly...Normani didn't know what she wanted from herself.

"I wish that I'd never met you."

Without looking back, Ally turned away and left Normani's life.

**********

And then someone else entered it. 

"Well. Normani Kordei. This is interesting." 

Norman's head snapped up and her eyes fell on a figure in the doorway. "Kyla," Normani sighed. "What are you doing here? You're expelled."

"Doesn't mean I can't sneak on campus," she said, shrugging. Normani just shook her head and crumpled to the floor. Her life, her soul was gone. Kyla didn't scare her. "I saw Ally Brooke leave," she continued, stepping forwards and staring down at Normani. Everybody did. "Why aren't you with her?"

"Because she doesn't need me."

"Seems that she used to."

"Yeah, well, those days are over."

Kyla paused, but Normani still wouldn't look at her. "You ruined my life, Normani Kordei," Kyla finally said, her shadow engulfing Normani. "So I'm glad that yours is ruined, too."

"I lit a fire. How did that ruin your life?"

"I'm expelled. My reputation is gone. I have to go to public school." There was another pause. Normani figured she'd be good at drama. "So forgive me, it's rather satisfying to see you like this."

"Shut the fuck up, Kyla," Normani sighed. "You don't have anything over me."

"Yes, I do," she replied, almost chastisingly. "You're already hurt enough, I can tell, but - there's one more person I need to destroy."

Finally, Normani looked up and stared into Kyla's smug eyes. "Then go do that."

"I will. Thank you, Normani. You've made this so easy."

Kyla walked out. Normani stayed where she was. 

Three minutes passed before she smelled the smoke.

**********

The door handle was warm against Normani's palm and she was shaking as she tightened her grip around it. Kyla had actually lit a fire when she knew Normani was inside, the bitch. But Normani didn't even care. She could make it out. The smoke didn't smell too strong yet. 

But she didn't turn the doorknob. 

What the fuck was she supposed to do? Go outside the door? She'd be blamed for the fire, first of all. No one was supposed to be in here. And even though that couldn't scare her, facing Ally did. No - it terrified her. Because, well...

Because Normani loved her. 

That was wrong. She just didn't love her. Her passion for Ally consumed her. She needed Ally and she didn't know why, but she knew Ally was the one, and she'd tried to force it, but Ally didn't feel the same. Camila was there for Ally. Normani couldn't be. That wasn't fair, and she knew that, she did, but she forced it anyway. She'd destroyed everything. 

Everyone else probably hated her. She started to shake when she realized just how badly she'd screwed it up. God, she was so worthless, so useless. Nothing. She was nothing. She meant nothing. 

Her hand fell from the doorknob. A part of her wanted to reach up, run out the door, get to Ally and tell her how sorry she was. But a larger part of her overruled that. She didn't move. Even when the heat reached her body, even when wooden beams fell around her, she didn't move. 

Normani lay back on the floor and let the flames consume her. 

**********

Time was meaningless. The blackness was dominating. Normani didn't know where she was, but she was alone. 

She felt herself leaving this place, leaving everything, leaving the world. Leaving Ally. 

For a second, she tried to hold on. 

But then she let herself go and for a second, she was sure she'd done something right. 

But just before she left, she knew that she'd done something terribly wrong. 

It was too late to fix it. Normani Kordei was gone, and she wasn't coming back. 


End file.
